When the first distress call came crackling across a marine radio channel Sunday afternoon, the watch commander at the Coast Guard's San Francisco base concluded immediately that the situation was dire. Though conditions were sunny and smooth on the water outside the Guard's Yerba Buena Island command post, the caller said his 29-foot sailboat -- his wife, 4-year-old son and nephew onboard -- was in trouble some 60 miles off the Monterey coast, where gale-force winds were blowing up swells the size of a two-story building.

The harrowing call led the Coast Guard to dispatch an armada of rescue vessels that spent two days feverishly searching 22,000 square miles of ocean -- to no avail. Finally, on Tuesday, authorities called off the search and reluctantly faced the awful reality that the it may all have been an elaborate prank.

"We want to think every case is legitimate," said Petty Officer 2nd Class Barry Bena. "There is the possibility this is a hoax."

The hints were increasingly hard to ignore: No one had come forward to report their family missing. Not even parents of the supposed "cousin" had materialized, suggesting the boaters had either begun their trip from far away -- or that they never existed in the first place.

The man's voice on the radio had remained disconcertingly calm, even as he reported that the boat, which he called by a name that sounded like "Charmblow," was taking on water while the vessel's electronics were failing.

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Moreover, the caller said there was no GPS device onboard, or any navigation equipment that would help pinpoint the position. And more remarkably still, during the conversation a Coast Guard spokesman said was "ongoing" for 70 minutes -- until the caller calmly announced that he and his passengers were abandoning ship -- no one from the Coast Guard was ever able to learn the names of anyone on the boat, or even the stricken craft's home port.

Calm voice

On Monday, apparently still believing a real emergency was unfolding, authorities released a portion of the distress call in hopes someone might recognize the voice. "Coast Guard, Coast Guard. We are abandoning ship. This is Charmblow. We are abandoning ship," said a man's unhurried voice in the recorded transmission.

But search teams never spotted a trace of wreckage, including the makeshift raft that the caller said he was attempting to fashion from a cooler and life preserver ring. Despite attempting to navigate the open ocean with small children aboard, the craft supposedly had carried little or no safety equipment.

"Any boater who goes that far out needs to either watch the weather forecast very carefully, or have a boat that's properly prepared for those conditions," said Steve Scheiblauer, harbor master at Monterey Bay. "Things like having a life raft, modern navigation equipment, GPS would be really essential. That's definitely serious water that far out."

Sailors who try to charter a boat at most harbors are asked to prove their proficiency at sea, but California imposes no such requirement on owners. "Anybody can buy a boat," Scheiblauer noted ruefully.

No triangulation

The seas were deep and mean by 5 p.m. Sunday, when the first search aircraft arrived. "The water was cold, gale winds, rough seas," said Coast Guard spokesman Mike Lutz. "It was rough out. It was a very dangerous situation for all the crews involved in the rescue. But we can't just sit back when there's a possibility someone might be in distress."

The radio signal bounced off only one tower, so the Coast Guard was unable to triangulate its position. "That signal gave us a line of bearing to where the search took place," Lutz said. "We had assets heading to that area fairly soon after the distress call came in. But it was a fairly large area." In addition to Coast Guard cutters and helicopters, the California Air National Guard scrambled a C-130 Hercules plane to the scene.

Even as the suspicion of a hoax grew Tuesday, in the wake of a rescue effort that was estimated to have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, one puzzle remained. "Let's say there was another vessel in that area, and they decided to be jerks and call a fake mayday," said LaDonna Bubak, an editor at Latitude 38, a boating magazine. "But wouldn't planes that were searching the area spot that boat, intercept it, and at least have a conversation with it? There are very few boats that could outrun a C-130."